rename command

From:

Sami Kerola

Subject:

rename command

Date:

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 11:11:01 +0200

Hello coreutilitarians,
I have been lately making some util-linux patches and while doing
so I found rename command. It did not take long to realize that
the command would be much better if it would support similar
switches as mv. To accomplish that reusing gnulib copy
functionality felt correct to me, but that is a problem within
context of util-linux package, it does not use gnulib and I do
not think it will have anytime soon. I proposed to move rename in
util-linux mail list from util-linux to coreutils package, and
Karel Zak, current util-linux maintainer, responded 'go ahead and
ask at coreutils mailing list'.
So here we are, would it sound reasonable to take rename command
to be part of coreutils?
To be a bit more concrete I wrote first version of patch. While
the patch is nearly good there are issues. For instance
tests/misc/help-version is failing, and I my attempt to fix that
was unsuccessful. The command itself poses few implementation
questions. Should rename support recursion, and should the rename
move files across directories (IMHO that would be unintuitive)?
--
Sami Kerola
http://www.iki.fi/kerolasa/